The Otley Ghost with no Eyes…

If you’ve been reading along with our weekly blogs, you’ll have read about the Paranormal Experiences we’ve had on our Yorkshire Ghost Tours. And, if you’ve visited our Otley Ghost Tour, you may know of the lady who haunts the Parish Church Yard. She dresses all in white and is seen most often by children, she sings with a voice like a strangled cat and she scrambles around the gravestones as though looking for something… but to no avail: she has no eyes. 

Now, it should be noted that the people who have seen this ghost in particular have made several attempts at researching into who this woman might’ve been. The father of the young lad who spotted her back in the 1990s for example had a keen interest in the history of the Parish Churchyard and trawled through Church documents and archives to figure out who she was.

It can be tough, though, to figure out who women were throughout history, because very often records aren’t published without ties to a man. Women were frequently buried without reference even to their own name, with “Mrs. [husband’s name]” often being written on the gravestone. Unmarried women would have been buried in relation to their father or brother. This has all changed throughout the last 150 years as documentation has (slightly and gradually) improved. But figuring out who women were before then, unless they were a royal or a prominent person in a male-dominated field, can be very difficult.

Without going on too much of a tangent about misogyny in historical documentation (next blog?!) might I add that women’s stories constitute as little as 0.5% of all recorded history. That’s generations worth of women’s stories lost to the favour of male dominated historical events like war, politics and commerce. How extremely repetitive and boring. 

The Parish Churchyard on a foggy night. Photograph by Yorkshire Ghost Tours

There are a number of women buried in the Otley Churchyard of course. Many of them were members of the 79 irish folk who are buried there, having fled to Otley as a result of the Great Famine. You can find images of many of their grave stones here. Our ghost could well have been one of these ladies.

The 1620 tomb of Lady Fairfax is also kept on the grounds of the Parish Church. The Fairfaxes were one of the most prominent families who came to reside in Otley. Lady Ellen Fairfax and her husband, Lord Fairfax have stone replicas of their bodies kept at the Church. Check them out here. Could Lady Ellen Fairfax be our ghost? 

One rather tragic tale includes the death of a 9 year old boy who died of smallpox the day after his family moved to Otley from Ireland to flee the Great Hunger. His name was John McQuinn, and he had a burial that has been matched by no other in the town, before or after. His mother and father carried his coffin through the streets of Otley from the Irish Fields, with only his brother and sister on either side, as they were unable to afford a hearse. They were dressed in rags - all they had - and they knew nobody else in the town, so that was it for the congregation. Onlookers watched in silence as they moved through the streets, and John McQuinn’s quiet funeral is a haunting memory that has been passed down through generations in Otley. He is still buried in the Churchyard to this day.

Perhaps our ghost could be McQuinn’s mother? Might that explain why she often manifests to children? It would also explain the rags she has been seen wearing…

The Otley Ghost with no Eyes

Artwork by Freya Gustafson

@freyagustafsonart

But what about her eyes? It’s grisly, but eye removal was a form of torture and punishment used throughout history in the UK. William the Conqueror introduced blinding as punishment to replace the death penalty in the 11th century, and Henry I used eye removal and castration to punish for crimes as minor as theft. 

If our lady was one of our irish refugees however, eye-removal as punishment would’ve been before her time. A more likely explanation could be (and this is also grisly) that she removed her eyeballs herself. It’s been suggested by a medium who visited our tour and witnessed the ghost of this woman in particular that she may have had psychosis. This is implied because she’s often seen scrambling around and howling, but has been seen also in the form of a very serious figure: upright, hands clasped together. She may have presented herself in both these ways at different times throughout her life. 

Another example of an Otley ghost who mutilated their eyes from their face would be that of William Taylor - the Otley murderer. How strange that Otley has so many horrible stories to do with eyeballs. The Otley ‘Eye Licker’ in the market place would be another one - a popular market vendor who would literally lick the cataracts from people’s eyes! Otley commemorates the ghosts of Otley’s historical eye problems through the form of 6 opticians: Specsavers, Nicole Bowden Optics, Fink Eyewear, Sydney Goldwyn and iVision Opticians. We’ll have to start calling it Optley. 

I digress. 

Have you seen the ghost of the eyeless lady in the churchyard? Do you know someone who may have seen her? Have you seen any ghosts in Otley at all? If so, please do get in touch at info@yorkshireghosttours.com - we love hearing about your experiences! 

Til’ next week! See you on the other side…

Spindleshanks McScrew x